When I was in the third grade, I was diagnosed as nearsighted. My teacher noticed me squinting to see what she was writing on the blackboard. I didn’t notice anything wrong; all I had to do was squinch them up a little bit and everything was fine. But, I was issued glasses. My eyesight got worse until it leveled out somewhere in high school, and I haven’t had a change in my prescription since then.
1980 was also the height of Star Wars mania. It was the barren time between the first two movies, when we didn’t know much about what would happen and the modern PR machine didn’t exist, so everything we heard was third-hand rumor. Boba Fett was whispered about like a boogeyman. Millennials don’t really understand the cultural impact of the franchise on my generation; I heard someone claim The Matrix was bigger, but I just laughed in their face. Star Wars was EVERYWHERE. We loved it; our parents loved it. We all lived and breathed the trilogy and were sad to see it come to a close.
Jen and I have been debating on when to expose Finn to the series, and how to handle things. We decided early on that we would show her the movies we saw at roughly the same age we did; we agreed to leave the prequels out completely, because fuck that. On Saturday we screened Star Wars at home, and Finn loved it. Sunday was Empire, and Monday we saw Jedi. Each night we fielded 20 new insightful questions before putting her to bed. We’ve got the 2004 DVD series, which means they’ve been “enhanced,” and while we cringed at the cutesy CGI additions, Finn loved them. Gauging her response after Jedi, we debated taking her to The Force Awakens (we’d been planning on getting a babysitter and going ourselves) but ultimately decided she’d be fine.
We all loved it. Jen and I have been studiously avoiding any kind of spoilers for weeks now (I will avoid them here) so everything was fresh for us, and it was a treat. The main beats of the movie hit really well. The character and story arcs are written skillfully; there’s more character development in this single movie than in all three of the prequels. Each character had a clear sense of purpose, direction and emotion, thank god. I like the new characters they’ve introduced, and it was great to see our old friends joking, smiling, and kicking ass!
Finally, the movie looked like a Star Wars movie in a way that the prequels simply did not. Practical effects, real sets, real props, a return to the original lighting direction and a cautious use of CGI go a long way. The Millenium Falcon is a real set. It exists somewhere, and the characters can touch it.
Gripes? Just a few. It’s JJ Abrams, so things are paced a little quicker than I’d like. It’s quite derivative in terms of plot. I wanted to spend just a little more time with some of the characters and the places they visited. But if I squint just a little bit, it’s 1980 again, and I’m happy to be back in that world, if only for an hour and a half. I can’t wait for the next one.